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HOLLINGER 
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MILL RUN F3-1543 



THE ELECTION AND THE CANDIDATES. 



GOVERNOR REEDER IN FAVOR OF FREMONT. 

REASONS FOR ELECTING FREMONT AND DAYTON. 
''THE POOR WHITES OP THE SOUTH." 



LETTER FROM GOV. REEDER ON THE APPROACHING ELECTION. 



Nbw York City, September 18, 1866. 
To the Editors of the Evening Post : 

Gentlemen : — The letter of your correspond- 
ent H., and your editorial comments upon it of 
the 16th inst., seem, in common courtesy, to de- 
mand a reply. Your correspondent does not err 
in saying that I desire the success of the Repub- 
lican party and the election of their candidate, 
and that I am ready to contribute any honorable 
effort to bring it about. This is not the result of 
any preference as to men, but in spite of it. With 
Colonel Fremont I am unacquainted. I have 
never seen him, nor had any communication with 
him, direct or indirect, verbal or written. On the 
other hand, my feelings of friendship and admira- 
tion for Mr. Buchanan, as a man, are of no ordi- 
nary character, and are strengthened by years of 
friendly intimacy and reciprocal acts of kindness, 
uninterrupted to this time by a single misunder- 
standing or unpleasant feeling ; and I would at 
any time defend him promptly and indignantly 
against personal attacks upon his reputation. I 
believe him to be a man of distinguished ability, 
of high integrity and valuable experience. He is 
surrounded, too, in Pennsylvania by many politi- 
cal friends, whom personally I love and esteem, 
and to whom I am united by ties of long-cherished 
political and social intimacy, and the loss of 
whose friendship I should regard as a great calam- 
ity. For more than a quarter of a century, I have 
steadily labored with the Democratic party, and 
never doubted that I should do so during my life. 
For years, I have exerted myself to bring about 
Mr. Buchanan's nomination. In 1848 and 1852, I 
was one of those who carried for him the dele- 
gates of our district, and was his zealous and ar- 
dent supporter. On each occasion, I was in the 
National Convention as one of his delegates. 

These ties are exceedingly strong and hard to 
sever, especially with one who is naturally of a 
conservative cast, and slow to change old habits 
of thought and action ; and I have resisted for 
months the convictions that were urging me to 
my present declaration. I have diligently sought 



reasons and arguments to save myself the pain of 
breaking up old associations and alienating my- 
self from my old friends, but all in vain. My lore 
of country and hatred of oppression would not 
allow my feelings and inclinations either to delude 
my judgment or still my conscience, and I am 
compelled to forfeit my self-respect by committing 
what I believe to be palpably wrong, or else 
enroll myself in opposition to the Democratic 
party. 

I see no reasonable hope of justice and sympa- 
thy for the people of Kansas in the success of the 
Democracy. In its ranks, and with the power to 
control its action, are found the Border Ruffians 
of Missouri and their accomplices of the South, 
who have trampled upon the Constitution, and all 
the essential principles of our government, robbed 
Kansas of its civil liberty and right of suffrage, 
laid waste its territory with fire and sword, and 
repudiated even civilization itself. 

In its platform I find the enunciation of prin- 
ciples which would put the rope about the necks 
of men for exercising the constitutional right of 
petitioning Congress for a State Government, or a 
redress of grievances far worse than those which 
led to the war of the Revolution, and a declara- 
tion stigmatizing as " armed resistance to law ' 
the moderate and justifiable self-defence of men 
shamefully and infamously oppressed by ruffian 
violence and outrage, beyond all human endurance. 
I find the whole party of the nation assembled 
in National Convention, with but one individual 
dissent, expressing its " unqualified admiration " 
of an Administration which has lent itself as the 
tool and accomplice of all the wrongs inflicted 
upon Kansas, and by its venality and imbecility 
brought the country to an intestine war. 

I find all its representatives in Congress, with 
three individual exceptions, laboring with earnest 
zeal, by speech and vote to cover up the iniqui- 
ties of this Administration and the Border Ruf- 
fians of Missouri, and to suppress a fair investiga- 
tion of outrages which shock both humanity and 
republicanism, and defy the Constitution and the 



Price of this Document, 



PER Thousand. 



t435 



. find tbcse pnme representatives, after the 
.ruth was elicited in spite of their efforts, still re- 
fusing to relieve the people from a code of laws 
imposed upon them by a foreign army, and still 
refusing to admit them into the Union, only for 
reasons, which, in the case of nine existing States, 
had been declared untenable and of no account. 

I find them disregarding a Free Constitution 
adopted in a legal, constitutional and time-sanc- 
tioned manner, (and which no man can doubt to 
have retlected the will of the people,) and sup- 
porting a law to produce a substitute, which it is 
easy to show would have perpetuated in the State 
Government, the usurpation which had by force 
already seized upon the Government of the Ter- 
ritory. 

I find them refusing to make appropriations for 
the army, unless that army i.s to be used to en- 
force a code of laws violative on their face, 
of the Constitution, enacted by a Legislature in 
violation of the laws of the United States, and 
imposed by foreign force upon conquered and 
subjugated American citizens. 

I find them, in a word, steadily aiding/ by all 
their Congressional action to make a Slave State 
in northern latitudes, and that, too, against the 
will of its inliabitants. 

I find that one Member, who more than any 
other stood out against the enslavement of his 
white fellow-citizens, is refused a re-nomination 
by the Democratic party of his district. 

I find in the canvass now going on that the 
whole tone of their party press is in the same di- 
rection. When the first startling intelligence of 
the outrages in Kansas reached the States, their 
editors denounced the foul wrong in terms of tit- 
ting indignation. It was but a spasmodic effort, 
however, and in deference to the South and the 
prevailing sentiment of the party, they have 
dropped off, one after the other, until now, so far 
as I have been able to ascertain, there is not a De- 
mocratic paper which dares boldly to justify and 
defend the Free-State party, and denounce their 
invaders. In place of encouragement and sym- 
pathy for their outraged fellow-citizens from the 
Korth, there is little else than jeers and ridicule 
for their oppressed and suffering condition — mis- 
representation of their motives and conduct, and 
a pretended incredulity of the statements and ap- 
peals which they send theirbrethren of the States. 

I find their speakers exhibiting the snme spirit — 
some of them ignoring the question entirely ; others 
ol'thcm tn-atingit with perversions, misrepresenta- 
tions and false issues; and olhiTs t,il.ing openly 
the side of the oppressors ; but no one of them ad- 
vocating the cau.'-c of Kansas, or favoring her ad- 
mission under the Free-State t'onstitution adopted 
by her people. 

In the puljlic demonstrations and pioccssions of 
the party, I find banners and depicts containing 
brutal insults, in response to the ap] eals of tha'. 
people for protection against unpuralhlcd wrongs, 
calculated, as no doubt they must be 'ntended, to 
prepare the masses for a continued refusal of 
justice and protection, and a relentless persistence 
ill outrage and oppression. 

I find all the Democrats South, and a portion of 
the Democracy of the N'ortii, boldly repudiating 



the Kansfts-Nebra-ska Bill, by insisting that Slaverj 
has a right to go into the Territories, in spite of ' 
Congress or the people ; and that the inhabitants 
of the Territory have no right to pass Territorial 
laws to forbid it or exclude it. Democratic re- 
presentatives from Pennsylvania even, in the 
Senate and the House, hold and proclaim these 
opinions ; while other representatives from Penn- 
sylvaina with Democratic leaders from other 
States, declare themselves publicly to be non- 
committal upon this heresy ; the inevitable ten- 
dency of which, it is easy to show, will be to 
prevent almost entirely the formation of any more 
Free States. 

Having originated a movement myself, to aid 
our people by sending them men and money, and 
having prosecuted it with the strictest avoidance 
of party character and a studied neutrality as to 
the political canvass, and having earnestly asked 
the cooperation of men of all parties, I huve 
failed to enlist in it, to my knowledge, a single 
Democrat. In the Conventions of Cleveland and 
Buffalo, called without distinction of party, in 
furtherance of this enterprise, there was no Demo- 
crat present but myself. This cannot have been 
from any want of generosity or of means, but 
only in deference to the prevailing tone and sen- 
timent of the party which is enlisted upon the- 
other side of the question. And not only have 
they abstained from aiding the movement, but in 
their presses and by their private influence they 
have endeavored to cripple and retard it by sneer- 
ing at it, warning the community against it as trea- 
sonable, and declaring that the money would be 
nnsapplied, thus endeavoring to prevent contribu- 
tions even from friends of the measure. 

I might go on with this catalogue and enumer- 
ate other indications, if necessary, showing that 
the prevailing tone of the party is hostile to Kan- 
sas; but I consider it only necessary to add that 
what I have said relates but to the North. The 
South, where the great mass of the party is to b« 
found, makes no pretension, as a whole, to the ad- 
vocacy of anything but pure Border Rutliauism. 

What, then, have the Free-State men of Kansas 
to expect from a Democratic Administration, even 
if presided over by .Mr. Buchanan ? If he could 
be left to act upon his own impulses, unaffected 
by external influences, and free from all pledges 
and oljligations, express and implied, the case 
would be very ditforent. But, unfortunatelv, this 
is not so. His election would rightfully be con- 
sidered a decision against us, whatever may be his 
own jjrivate feelings. His oflices at Washington, 
in Kansas and elsewhere, would necessarily, to a 
large extent, be tilled with our enemies. His in- 
formation would come through a distorted me- 
dium ; and lastly, he could not aid us without 
having first made up his mind to be abandoned 
and warred upon by his own party. The South 
would charge him with violating his pledges, and 
turn upon liim, with the bitter.-st hostility, and at 
least a portion of the Xuithern Democracy would 
follow their example. He would thus be left with- 
out a party to support his Administration, unless 
he should cast himself into the arms of the Repub- 
licans. We cannot, it seems to me, either ask or 
expect him to do this upon aquestiou where party 



lines are so plainly drawn before his election. 
Like all other men in the same situation, he must 
obey the party sentiment on which he is elected. 
That there are Democrats inPennsylvania who are 
full of indignation against the conduct of the South 
in regard to Kansas I am well aware, and that they 
would use their influence to redress her wrongs I 
am well satisfied ; but they are too few in propor- 
tion to the whole party of the Union to sustain his 
Administration in a war with his party. They have 
as yet been unable to make their opinions appear 
and be felt in the party, and, of course, cannot do 
so hereafter. I honor their good intentions, but I 
cannot believe in their power. 



I repeat that I have been forced to these con- 
clusions after no slight struggle with my feelings 
and inclinations. Should Mr. Buchanan be elected, 
and his administration be difiercnt from what my 
judgment compels me to believe, I shall giveitmy 
cordial approbation, and my feeble though willing 
support. As I believe now, I must regard the De- 
mocratic party as fully committed to Southern 
Sectionalism, toward which for some time past, it 
has been rapidly tending, and I quit it, well 
assured that my duty to my country demands at 
my hands this sacrifice of personal feeling. 
Very truly yours, 

A. II. REEDER. 



SPEECH OF GOVERNOR REEDER AT NEW HAVEN. 



This vast collection of eager and intelligent 
auditors is but one of the many evidences that 
constantly throng the land and address the senses 
of us all, proving the deep and increasing solici- 
tude with which the people regard the events of 
which I am come to speak. This eager, anxious 
interest gives me hope for our country and its 
institutions, where I should otherwise despair of 
the destiny of the one, and the wisdom of the 
other; for it is plain that nothing can so etfec- 
tually test the patriotism and self-governing 
power of our people as the issue which now comes 
from the bloody plains of Kansas. Since the War 
of Independence, I do not hesitate to say that no 
event has taken place in our history of so much 
importance, and requiring so much the anxious 
attention of every citizen, as the history of that 
unfortunate Territory. Our two last wars with 
foreign powers, our most exciting political con- 
tests, our acquisitions of territory, all pale into in- 
significance with the for-seeing and the right-judg- 
ing man, when compared with this question and its 
portentous bearings upon the destiny of our coun- 
try. Were not the evidence spread before us all, 
as if written in gigantic, vivid letters upon the 
heavens, it would be incredible that this model Re- 
public is the only government in the civilized world 
which refuses protection to its citizens in return 
for the allegiance it demands of them. No tyro 
in law or politics is ignorant of the principle that 
the obligation to protect follows the authority to 
govern, as the shadow follows the substance, whe- 
ther in the relation of parent and child, master 
and servant, or government and subject. Travel, 
if you will, over the civilized world, visit its king- 
doms, its empires, and its most absolute despot- 
isms, and then acknowledge in shame and bitter 
humiliation, that the government which we boast 
as an example to the world, as a monument of 
wisdom and popular hberty, is the single, solitary 
delinquent which faithlessly refuses protection for 
life and property in return for the obedience which 
it exacts. It is a spectacle which must make the 
cheek of every American burn with mortification; 
and until we have efiaced the foul stain from our 
escutcheon by the most signal redress and retri- 
bution, we must cease to boast of our superiority 



over the monarchies of the earth, and spare 
our misplaced pity for the serfs of the despot. 

If the problem of self-government is only to 
be solved in the result of anarchy and bloodshed, 
in the lawless rule of the strong over the weak, 
and the devastation of the social structure and 
the domestic hearth at the pleasure of the lawless 
ruffian, while the government looks idly and smil- 
ingly on, and the residue of the people (so long 
as their own localities are exempt from the curse) 
in heartless selfishness refuse to recognize their 
obligation to interfere, then, indeed, had the prob- 
lem better have remained forever unsolved in the 
brain of visionary philanthropy, and the blood of 
the Revolution have been better unshed. 

But in the midst of our vaunting over the past 
achievements of our country in the cause of civil- 
liberty and human rights, and while we are chal- 
lenging the admiration of the world for having at- 
tained the perfection of human government, let uff 
recur to the events and developments of a few years- 
past, and we will find in them enough to convince 
us that much of our work remains unfinished; 
that a false security is fraught with fatal dangers, 
and that it becomes every patriot to address him- 
self with deep solicitude to the signs of the times. 

One of the States of this Union, with a Consti- 
tution modelled upon these of her sister States, 
and a frame of government such as yours, after a 
struggle of a few years to secure to her people 
civil liberty, popular sovereignty, and a safe admin- 
istration of justice, is at length driven to a revo- 
lution to throw off her institutions and officers, 
and to save for her people civil liberty and social 
protection. God grant that the self-elected oli- 
garchy, to which the people have willingly sub- 
mitted as a lesser evil than the government of 
their own making, may result in final good ! 

In the Southern States, where labor, the source\ 
of all national wealth and power, is held to be \ 
dishonorable and degrading, we find freedom of 
speech and opinion systematically denied and re- 
pudiated, and resident citizens charged not with 
violation of any law, but with holding political 
opinions different from their neighbors, tried, not 
b> a recognized Court, but by a public meeting, 
and sentenced to leave their business, their homes,. 



and their property, on pain of lawless violence, 
while the or^iuiized courts of justice arc incompe- 
tent to give them redress ; and in the Nortli we 
find men for personal advantage to themselves 
willing to extend this state of society over the re- 
sidue of the Union. 

On the western slope of the Rocky Moun- 
tains the people in one of our Territories have 
demonstrated their incompetency at least, for 
good self-government, by founding their social 
structure upon principles which poison and demo- 
ralize every fountain of civilization and good 
order, and having united Church and State in 
their government, their si'iritual leader and civil 
governor claims to rule " by divine right." Hav- 
ing thus placed himself upon the exploded autho- 
rity claimed by emperors and kings, he repudiates 
allegiance to our common Constitution, and auda- 
ciously refuses to surrender his place at the call of 
the Federal (Jovcrnment. A pusillanimous Presi- 
dent, busied only with selfish aggrandizement, 
succumbs to the rebellioD, and this Church and 
State potentate by divine right is left in power 
•vor a portion of our people. 

Turn, then, to the plains of Kansas, and see 
how these evils, small and unnoticed at first, are 
fearfully accelerating their speed and widening 
the breach which they make over the loved and 
idolized institutions of our country, defying and 
repudiating national Constitution, national laws, 
free speech, free press, free suffrage, self-govern- 
ment, civil liberty, social order, domestic security, 
judicial remedies, moral restraint'^, and all hnnian 
rights except such rights as may be found in phy- 
sical strength. 

Horrible and stunning as this announcement is, 
who will d.ire to deny its truth? The details of 
this terrible outline and its effects and conse- 
quences upon men, women, and children, accus- 
tomeil, Hke yourselves, to the securities, the pro- 
tections, the restraints and the refinements of so- 
ciety here, plunged all unprepared into this cald- 
ron of barbarism, with the solemn pledges of this 
great nation in their hands, for the enjoyment of 
institutions such as they left behind them, I cannot 
■ndcrlake to depict with the most remote hope of 
doing them justice. It is a task far beyond my 
feeble powers, and I leave the picture to your im- 
ftginalion, with no hope, however, that you will ap- 
proach the reality ; asno man can have arealizing 
8cn.se of the fearful scenes that rage around a 
pc0[)!e wlio, under the shadow of the stripes and 
stars and the nominal protection of tlie Constitu- 
tion, arc in a worse condition than the subjects of 
Austria, France or Russia. 

I need scarcely tell you, however, that they 
have no part or lot in their own goveiiiment — no 
laws of their own making — no officers of their own 
choosing — no taxes of their own levying. They 
arc politically slaves, with no semblance of self- 
govirnment left — the complete subjects of the 
Ijorder counties of Missouri, who dictate their laws, 
their institutions and their ofRcers. 

In all this is there not food for ih.ep thought, for 
di.strossing anxiety as to the future destiny of our 
country V Can the true patriot or the reflecting 
man n-st in cold ajjathy while the very foundations 
of our structure thus crumble before his eyes? 



Would to God that with burning eloquence and all- 
potent intellect I could send a warning voice to 
every voter in the land, arousing him to the ne- 
cessity of holding public servants to strict account- 
ability, and of hurling from the high places of 
governmental power and party influence, the men 
who, in the blind pm-suit of party prejudices or 
little honors for themselves, would dare to trifle 
with the great principles without which our Go- 
vernment is not worth preserving ! 

But to return to the people of Kansas. I have 
said that their condition is less tolerable than that 
of the serfs of Russia ; and who will deny it ? 
Both arealike without a vestige of political liberty, 
but the latter at least have their judicial tribunals, 
to which they may appeal for redress of their 
w-rongs ; while lawlessness, outrage, rapine and 
crime run riot over the beautiful plains of Kansas, 
and there is no arm of law to stay their course. 
On the contrary, the robbers, the house- burners, 
the highwaymen, the ravishers, and the murderers 
of Kansas, are the very men who, in horrible 
mockery, have made themselves the ministers of 
the law ; and the midnight raid of a murderous 
banditti or a proceeding in a court of justice (God 
save the mark!) is, each, only a different road to 
reach the same result. 

But let us advert to the cause of this state of 
things. It is not to be found in the character of 
the people of the Territory, for they are, as a class, 
far above the average of a frontier population in 
good conduct, refinement, and general intelligence. 
It is not in any preference for this anarchy, for it 
threatens them with almost certain pecuniary ruin, 
starvation, and slaughter, and is at war with all 
their life-long education, prejudices, and habits of 
life. The cause is external and has its origin in a 
scheme to make Kansas a Slave State by violence 
and force of arms, or, in other words, to force the 
institution of Slavery upon an unwilling people ; 
and the machinery by which it is sought to be 
effected is a system of secret societies in Missouri 
and other Southern States. That scheme has 
been progressing, step by step, towards its con- 
summation before the eyes of the government, 
allowed to go on unchecked and unrebuked, and 
each step so far attended with complete snccess. 

The citizens of Missouri in large numbers came 
into our Territory, and participated in our elec- 
tion for the purpose of choosing a delegate to 
Congress. In March, IHiif}, they came again, 
some four or five thousand in number, and voted 
at our polls by overpowering our people. They 
came in military array, with leaders, banners, 
arms, and music, and by violence and intimidation 
accomplislied their purpose, and elected for ufi a 
Legislature, against our will. All this you know, 
and you also know that this Legislature pi'oceeded 
to enact laws for the Territory only fit for slaves, 
and which the whole power of the Government 
has been aiding them to rivet upon us. The start- 
ling array of facts attending the election of this 
body I shall not detail, as the sworn evidence of 
them is before the public. This was their first 
successful step. In i)reparing the infamous legis- 
lation which was to close our ballot-boxes, sh\it us 
out from republican government, and perpetuate 
their ill-gotten power, these robbers of the right 



of suffrage, worse than the robbers of tlie purse 
or the dwelling, did not hesitate to declare, on the 
floor of their false and iniquitous Legislature, the 
shameless object of their action. They proceeded 
themselves to elect prosecuting officers, sheriffs, 
probate judges, county commissioners, and other 
officers, for each county. Unable, by reason of 
the newness of the population and their own igno- 
rance of it, to elect justices and constables, and 
yet resolved that they should not be chosen by 
the people, they carefully provide that all county 
and township officers required by law shall be ap- 
pointed by the county commissioners, who are 
elected by themselves. In attempted justification 
of this crime against the liberties of a whole peo- 
ple, these foreign masters opcidy declared in their 
legislative halls, that if they allowed our people to 
elect their own officers, they would be of wrong 
political opinions, and all the labor, money, and 
effort they had expended in seizing upon the go- 
Ternment of the Territory would be lost ; thus 
admitting that the numerical power was against 
them, and boldly avowing their intention to force 
upon this numerical majority, by foreign power, 
institutions and laws which were obnoxious to 
them. 

The elections provided by Congress for Legisla- 
ture and Congressional Delegates they could not 
entirely abolish, but they could arrange all their 
machinery and prescribe the qualifications of 
voters ; and to men so void of every sense of 
justice and honor, so recklessly bent upon a 
hellish purpose, so unscrupulous as to means and 
so devoid of shame, this chance to abuse and 
prostitute power was all sufficient. The County 
Commissioners are vested with almost unlimited 
control over the elections. They fix the places 
where the elections are to be held, with large 
discretion as to the public notice, and they appoint 
the men to hold them, taking care to select them 
with special reference to the unscrupulous manner 
in which they are expected to perform their 
duties. The provisions as to fixing the places 
of polls shortly before the election, and as to the 
mode of giving notice, are so ingeniously drawn 
that the people can, to a large extent, be kept 
ignorant of places where large illegal votes may 
be polled. Discretion of an unheard of character 
is vested in the judges, test oaths arc enacted to 
shut out Northern men, and facilities are afforded 
to let in foreign votes. I cannot now go into all 
the details of this infamous election law, but I 
have already shown in former speeches how 
admirably it was calculated to disfranchise our 
people, and perpetuate the usurpation that en- 
slaved us. 

The well-laid scheme goes on. With the Judi- 
ciary as their accomplice, by means of the Judges, 
the Marshal and the Sheriffs, they proceed, 
through the action of these officials, aided by the 
laws passed for the purpose, to proscribe all Free- 
State men from the jury-box, and then the Judi- 
ciary becomes their most terrible engine of 
tyranny. The scheme to force Slavery upon us 
is then seated upon our necks, beyond all remedy 
but revolution. 

The next of these horrible developments con- 
sists of a scries of atrocities, judicial, semi-judi- 



cial and lawless, but all under the protection of 
the authorities, and intended to provoke resist- 
ance even in the most abject, so that pretext 
might be had for open war between the little 
band of Free-State men on the one side, and the 
hordes of Missouri and the army of the United 
States on the other ; and calculated, if not 
resisted, to destroy, disorganize and enslave us 
beyond all redreas. One of these means was to 
deprive the party of its leaders — men whose 
influence in the State gave efficiency and strength 
to the cause, and whose calm and prudent coun- 
sels restrained the mass of their friends from any 
rash exhibition of defense or retaliation, for 
which our enemies were but too impatiently wait- 
ing. Ridiculous indictments for treason, founded 
upon the infamous perversion of law and no eri- 
dence, foreshadowed, if not instigated by the 
special Kansas Message of the President, are 
found by packed grand juries, selected for the 
purpose, and the leaders of the party are thus 
arrested and confined, helpless and inactive, op 
driven from the Territory. Eight of our best and 
most efficient men, whose assistance there or here 
would be invaluable, were for months and until 
lately prisoners, upon a ridiculous charge, in the 
hands of our oppressors, with the army of the 
United States sunk to the vile and degrading task 
of being their jailers. 

Thus you will see that every successive step has 
been conceived in diabolical malignity — invented 
with ingenuity worthy of a better cause, and 
being backed by the superior power of our inva- 
ders and the army of the United States, has been 
crowned with success. Follow them out to the 
end, and you will find the result always the same. 

The next movement was to deprive the Free 
State party of their presses. Four of these are 
destroyed — one at Leavenworth, two at Lawrence, 
and one at Osawatomie — some through the agency 
of judicial officers, after indicting them as nui- 
sances for proclaiming conservative Northern opi- 
nions, and allowing not even the poor privilege 
of a trial before a corrupt court and a packed 
jury ; and others by foreign mobs, avowedly com- 
ing direct from the State of Missouri for the pur- 
pose. This step, too, was successful. Having 
thus robbed us of all our political rights, shut ua 
out from the ballot-box, deprived us of access to 
all judicial remedies, stripped us of our leaders, 
destroyed our presses, the next step was to de- 
stroy all facilities for Northern emigration, and 
isolate us from our friends in the States. The 
hotel in Kansas City, the main landing-place of 
emigrants, was kept by a Northern man, and our 
friends on their arrival found there a hospitable 
roof, beneath which they could have shelter and 
aid while preparing to go into the Territory. 
Here they could daily see citizens of the Terri- 
tory, and procure all the information they needed. 
Here they could purchase their outfit, and even 
leave their families free from annoyance while 
they selected their residence and prepared their 
cabins. Our oppressors saw the value of this 
haven to Northern emigration, and how indispen- 
sable it was in a hostile country. That it was con- 
ducted with great prudence and strict avoidance 
of all cause of offense could not save it. Its de- 



itruction was decreed as a part of the great 
scheme. On several occasions, mobs assembled 
to destroy it, and finally its proprietor. Col. S. W. 
Bldridge, was called upon by a committee of citi- 
zens appointed at a public meeting, and informed 
that he must either sell out to a Pro-Slavery man, 
or have his house torn down over his head. To 
save himself from ruin, he was obliged to sell and 
leave. For the same reason, the hotel at Law- 
rence — equally indispensable to the town and the 
party — was destroyed by a lawless mob, assembled 
principally from Missouri, by a U. S. Marshal, 
under judicial authority, after an illegal and ridi- 
culous indictment of it as a public nuisance, found 
before it had been opened for guests, and while 
DO one yet lived in it. The order for its destruc- 
tion was issued without trial or notice to any one, 
and its walls were battered with cannon, its floor 
exploded by kegs of powder, and its splendid fur- 
niture cut into piles of kindling, by which it was 
finally burned to the ground. 

As the by-play to this outrage, the posse of the 
Marshal and Sheriff were meanwhile engaged in 
breaking into every house in the place, except 
two, robbing the stores, the wardrobes, the desks, 
the cupboards, and the trunks of the citizens, 
stealing money, provisions, watches, clothing, 
arm.'?, horse-s, cattle — everything, indeed, that this 
hoard of thieves could lay their hands upon, even 
down to the last quarter-eagle of a poor mechan- 
ic taken from his pocket on the street. Private 
dwellings were set on fire, and one, with all its fur- 
niture, books and papers, was burned to the 
ground, while property which thoy did not need, 
was wantonly cast into tlie street, and diligently 
destroyed. But I must forbear details, or my task 
is endless. 

One other step in the enterprise, after having 
reduced our people to a disorganiz"d mass of sub- 
jects, with no liberties, no protection for life or 
property, no loaders and no presses, was to de- 
prive thorn of the arms which might make them 
dangerous even in a last desperate struggle ; and 
accordingly the arms of our people were seized 
on the Mis«ouri River — at Kansas City — on the 
roads in the Territory — at the sacking of Law- 
rence, and in the cabins of the settlers. And, 
finally, the only route to the Territory, by the 
Miiwouri liiver, is absolutely clo.'sed against Nor- 
thern emigration, while parlies of men from the 
South, and a military organization witli arms and 
ammunition, are freely passed and aided on their 
way. A large portion of tiie letters mailed to and 
from the sclth-rs of the Territory never reach their 
dcBtinaticn, and thus are they denied even the 
mail facilities of the country, snlij''ctcd to the 
most odious espionage into their private affairs, 
and cmbarriuwed by the loss of their coci-espond- 
cncc. 

One leading feature in the pro.secutlon of this 
grand echerae of infamy to force Slavery upon an 
unwilling people I have yet to mention. Jn the 
Spring of 1H5G some 40O or 500 men came to the 
Territory from the Southern cities. Tiiey had 
been gatliered, as I am informed l)y credible men 
perKonaily cognizant of the facts, in the true fili- 
buBlering style with drum and fife and whisky. 
and witli large promises of free living and unre- 



strained license upon the plains of Kansas. They 
landed at Kan,safi City under military organiza- 
tion, with military leaders, and were marched in 
military order, fully armed, from the boat to the 
shore and into the Territory. The articles under 
which they came were publicly read to them in 
the hearing of a crowd of men, among whom 
were many of our friends. By these articles they 
were bound to a military organization — to voto 
the Pro-Slavery ticket, and fight the battles of the 
Pro-Slavery cause. 

They marched into the Territory and went at 
once to living in camp, making no attempt at 
bona fide settlement. The first band, under Ma- 
jor Buford, numbered about 300, and were fol- 
lowed by several detachments of the same cha- 
racter. They had been, doubtless, sent to order, 
to aid in furthering the great scheme of subjuga- 
tion, and they were gladly welcomed as super- 
seding the necessity of frequent invading parties, 
and preventing the lull of repose and recupera- 
tion which our people enjoyed when the Missou- 
rians would return home. The few Pro-Slavery 
men of the Territory could not be relied on to 
indorse and keep up the wholesale system of out- 
rage calculated to destroy the prosperity of the 
entire community. The new comers, however, 
were exactly fitted to their work. They had no 
stake in the country ; they came, as they avowed, 
only to fight, and cared only to indulge their un- 
bridled ferocity. Some of them were at once made 
Deputy Marshals. The mass of them remained in 
camps upon the great thoroughfares, living the 
life of a band of highwaymen, and supported by 
plunder of our citizens and contributions from 
Missouri. No man was allowed to travel on the 
most ordinary business without a written pass 
from a Pro Slavery leader ; and the United States 
officials, including the Governor and the Mar.^hal, 
reci:v|;nized this band of freebooters and murderers 
by granting passes to such persons as they chose 
to allow the privilege of travelling upon our pub- 
lic highways. Murders, robberies and outrages 
of all kinds were their daily employment, varied 
by an occasional enrollment into a Marshal's or a 
Sheritf's posse when some act of judicial tyranny 
was to be performed upon the people. The bodies 
of murdered men upon the prairie near tlieir camps 
were a common spectacle, and many a man 
started with his team, for provisions to feed his 
family, never to return. These are facts which I 
do not hesitate to assert on my own responsi- 
bility, and an investigation would find abundance 
of sworn testimony to establish tliem. 

These outrages, imparalleled and incredible as 
they are, were kept up throughout the whole 
Spring and Summer, and our peojile, fearful of 
bringing upon themselves the irresistible num- 
bers of° an invading horde from Missouri, and 
the troops of the United States, with the conse- 
quent less of supplies, and starvation for them- 
selves and their families, submitted beyond all 
the expectation of friends and foes, until they 
saw these bloody banditti erecting in various 
places block-houses for the accommodation of 
large parties, in whioh they stored their plunder, 
and would be able to conduct tlieir operations 
through the Winter. Upon one of these, com 



manding the main highway of the Territory, they 
made aa attack, and having driven out its gar- 
rison, they satisfied themselves by destroying the 
fort and taking the arms, many of them stolen 
property. Against another of these forts they 
asked protection from the troops of the United 
States, but the commander refused to believe that 
such a place existed, or to send a party to 
examine it. The people then sent an unarmed 
citizen peacefully to inquire the design of its 
occupants. The bearer of this flag of truce was 
basely murdered, and our people rushed to the 
blockhouse and destroyed it. One of the leaders 
of this banditti, and a former participator in the 
Lopez invasion of Cuba, having taken a fancy to 
the farm of a Free-State man, assembled a party 
of his men, drove out the owner, severely beaten 
and wounded, burnt his cabin, and erected a 
building to accommodate himself and his gang. 
The neighbors apply to the civil authorities for 
redress, and the consequence is that Gov. Shan- 
non sends a party of United States Dragoons to 
protect the marauder in his possession. Waiting 
till circumstances called the troops away, a small 
party of Free-State men attacked the building 
and destroyed it, a"nd captured the leader. 
With the moderation that always cliaracterized 
'them, they carried him to Lawrence, where he 
was nursed and his wounds dressed. And yet 
these moderate acts of self-defence and retaliation, 
justified and made necessary a thousand times 
over by the fiendish outrages and systematic per- 
secution which preceded and caused them, are 
howled over by our oppressors and their depraved 
accomplices in the States as a reason why tlie 
whole scheme of subjugation, and despotism, and 
murder, and robbery, and extension of slavery l)y 
violence, should be allowed to go on without mo- 
lestation or censure. The border swarms with 
Missouri invaders ; a peaceful town is attacked by 
a large force and every building burned to the 
ground ; the roads are all blockaded by armed 
parties to cut off succor and provisions ; while the 
President issues his orders to the new Governor 
to use the army of the United States, and if need 
be, two regiments of militia from Kentucky and 
Illinois, to put down the Free State men as rebels 
and insurgents, with not one word of condemna- 
tion for their assailants. 

The South are bent on the dedication of this 
fair country to Slavery. The first struggle for it 
took place in 1820, vvhen they hoped that by the 
Slave Oonstitution of Missouri, they had secured 
the key to the whole. In the compromise which 
ended that struggle it became ours, and the South 
solemnly agreed to surrender it. In 1854 thev 



progressed step by step, and always auccessfally ; 
how each and every outrage perpetrated upon 
our people tends directly and inevitably to its 
accomplishment, being deliberately adopted for 
the purpose. No close observer can fail to see 
that they are all harmonious p.irts of one great 
whole, separate and progressive moves toward 
one preconceived end, and the man who regards 
them as isolated occurrences, due to the surround- 
ing circumstances, labors under gross delusion. 

Let me assure you, too, that the work is almost 
done — so nearly done that we can easily specify 
the few details that will be necessary to finish it. 
On the first Monday of October next they are 
to hold an election for Legislators, and vote 
'• Convention" or " no Convention," and this elec- 
tion they have determined to carry by the same 
system of fraud and force. Bodies of armed men 
from the State of Missouri will be at the election 
polls. The restrictions and inventions of their 
Territorial election law will be in full operation 
— corrupt and perjured election officers will be 
carefully selected by the County Commissioners 
— the polls will be fixed in the most obnoxious 
places, perhaps in the camps of the Georgia and 
South Carolina banditti. Their armi'd men from 
Missouri at the polls, will be there according to 
law. Preparation to this end was made a year 
ago, by a law of their Territorial Legislature, 
which provides that on the election day there 
shall be a militia training throughout the whole 
Territory ; and this will be the shallow justifica- 
tion with which they will meet the complaints of 
our people — one, it is true, which would call the 
blush of shame to the cheek of an honest man, but 
which is all-su93cieut for Border-Ruffians or their 
apologists. Having carried a convention vote, 
there will be one more election for delegates to 
frame a Constitution, and the work is done. lu the 
mean time the gates of the Territory will be kept 
shut against Northern immigrants, more bands of 
guerrillas, from Southern cities, will be forvVarded 
and protected if they are needed, and the work of 
robbery, murder and starvation will go on in the 
cooped-up settlements. 

The Slave Constitution thus formed will come 
before Congress about December, 18.57, and will, 
of course, receive the unanimous Southern vote, 
notifithstanding it is stained with Northern blood, 
and written with the pen of tyranny, fraud and 
outrage. The additional votes necessary to carry 
it they will ask from Northern traitors, from 
whom they expect to purchase the base betrayal 
of their constituents, by the bribe of office or per- 
sonal aggrandisement. The members of Congress 
whom you will choose at the next election will be 
the men who must stand this test, and I beg you 



desired to play the game over once more, and have now to look to it that you elect no man who 
yet another chance for its possession, and again j when the issue comes between the two Constitu- 
solemnly covenanted, under the Kansas-Neb.saska tjous, will not stand firmly and truly by that 
bill, that if that chance was given them, they | which reflects the true sentiments of the people of 
would abide the test of numbers at the polls, and j the Territory. When we know that Northern 
acquiesce in the result. Finding themselves de- members of the present House voted, during last 
feated in this by a majority of Northern men on \ winter, against every form of investigation To ex- 
the soil, they dishonorably cast aside their second pose these outrages, and even after the truth was 
compact, and, regardless of every dictate of hoii- laid bare, in spite of their attempts to cover it up, 
esty and justice, determine to possess it by voted in favor of the legality of a Legislature 
.force. rproveu to have been elected by an armed invasioa 

I have already shown you how this plot his; of more than four thousand Missourians — in favor 



of giving a seat in tbe House to a man whom they 
knew to have been forced upon the people by the 
same foreign vote ; who, in a word, made them- 
selves the willing tools of the Missourians and a 
corrupt Executive to aid in furthering the infa- 
mous scheme of forcing Slavery upon an unwill- 
ing people, it buhoves you to watch well who 
fill those seats in the next Congress, 

Many of the most startling and iniquitous fea- 
tures in this plot, I have been compelled lo omit 
for want of time to detail them, and among them. 
the destruction of a Free-State town by a detach- 
ment of soldiers, and the consequent dispersion 
and ruin of the settlers, under the authority of the 
Secretary of War. by an illegal and wrongful ex- 
tension over it of a military reservation ; the re- 
duction of another military reservation by the 
same authority, to make a town for the Pro- 
Slavery interest ; the prostitution of olHcial power 
by Indian Agents for jolitical purposes; the 
making of Indian Treaties before the settlement 
of the Territory, calculat'd to embarrass settlers 
and prevent preemption ; the scheme to secure 
to the Pro Slavery speculators of Missouri, to the 
exclusion of Northern settlers, all the choice lands 
of the Siiawnee Reserve, and the cold-blooded 
murder of Gay, the Agent of the tribe, because, 
being a citizen of Michigan, he could not be made 
the tool to carry out this corrupt design ; the ad- 
vertisement for sale next month, by the President, 
of all the lands of the Delaware Reserve, when 
the Free-State men, impoverished, ruined and 
driven out, can neither pay for their claims, nor 
can their friends from tlie States go to their as- 
sistance ; the following up of this advertisement, 
by driving out from Loavenwoith men who had 
claims on those lands, and had the means to buy, 
upon the ostensible pretext that they were diso- 
beying the laws by refusing to take arms with the 
invaders against their fellow-ciiizens, but really 
to enable the moneyed men of Mi.ssouri to pos- 
sess their property. All the.<e. and many other 
iniquities, born of hell itself, could be told to 
make up a tale of wrongs that would make hu- 
manity shudder, and blacken even the darkest 
page of the crudest despot of the world. 

But let us pass on and survey the consequences 
of the success of this iniquitous plot to plant Sla- 
very in Kansas by force of arms. Does any man 
suppose that the loss of aStati; to thi' North, great 
as that misfortune would be, is the limit of these 
consequences? If so, let him be quickly unde- 
ceived. The whole South better understand the 
great stake for which they play ths grand and 
desperate game. It is for nothing less than the 
permanent preponderance of political power — a 
struggle for the ten or twelve new States to be 
made from Kansas Territory, Hu; Indian Territory, 
Utah and New Mexico. From the western border 
of Mis-uouri to the Pacific, the distance is greater 
than to the City of New York, and the center of 
the State of Kansas, supposing it to be made of 
the size of I'ennsylvania, will b',' the geographical 
center of the United States. Kansas Territory 
alone will make three States equal to Pennsyl- 
vania. Here then is half a continent at stake. 
and it is easily shown, as the Southern papers and 
the manifestoes issued from Western Missouri all 
insist, that the whole depemls upon the fate of 



Kansas. If the North cannot save the first Slacff 
in the tier, with steamboat navigation to its bor- 
ders, at least for the two first years, witii a ma- 
jority of Northern men upon the soil, and with 
but one Slave State intervening, and the railroads 
of Iowa within 300 miles, how is it possible to 
save the next State beyoid, when two Slave 
States will intervene, when every emigrant going 
there from the North will know in advance that 
he goes to risk life, liberty and property to pre- 
serve his freedom of speech and opinion, and 
when the land travel will have been increased 
some 300 miles through a Border-Ruffian popula- 
tion. And, as a matter of course, the result will 
be the same with the third and fourth and fifth 
and sixth, each becoming more hopeless as it is 
more remote, until the whqle tier is complete. 
Below these are the Indian Territory and New 
Mexico, which will be completely isolated from 
the North, guarded by the States made from Kan- 
sas and Deseret, as well as by Missouri, Arkansas 
and Texas. Who does not see that in this way 
not a square foot of these two Territories can by 
any possibility be saved to the North ? All. all 
will be lost with Kansas ; and this is well under- 
stood by the South, if we will not understand it 
here. Ten or twelve future States hang in the 
balance, depending upon the fate of Kansas, each 
with its two Senators in Congress and its members 
in the House, thus giving to the South a political 
power which will enable them to carve out the 
four States from Texas contemplated in the act 
of admission, and to prosecute their scheme of an^ 
nexing Cuba and the Sandwich Islands, and. if 
necessary, still greater acquisitions of embryo 
Slave States by conquests or purchases from 
Mexico. Not only in Congress will this power be 
felt by the North, but in the electoral colleges it 
will control the Presidential elections and the 
whole p.\tronage of the government, and thuswiU 
the system of slave representation neutralize the 
Republican principle, and enable the minority to 
rule the majority. 

And how, think you, will the South use t."ns 
political pawer? Having gained it by fraud, and 
violence, and crime, does any man believe they 
will use it witli magnanimity, and justice, and 
forbearance? Having first trampled upori the 
constitutional rights of free speech, free opinion, 
and free sutlVag..'. by force and violence, will they 
be suddenly seized with great respect for those 
rights in their legislation ? Having shown their 
willingiuiss to assail the North even when com- 
pelled to re-sort to palpable wrong and outrage, 
will tliey not gladly embrace the opportunity to 
do it in legal form? And when we know that 
even now they are able to corrupt our public men 
by the temptations of political promotion, shall 
we voluntarily put into their hands the means of 
inultii)lying among us ten-fold the traitors to 
Northern interests and free institutions? 

Tiie opening of the slave trade has long been the 
darling object of leading Southern politicians, and 
whenever tliey have the power to accomplish it a 
deluge of imported Africans will bo poured upoa 
us to depreciate and degrade American labor, and 
dispute the last crust witli the working men of 
the North; while laws for the most liberal transit 
of slaves across the States of the North will at 



once be fixed upoa our National statute-book. If 
I were to tell you that you would live to see the 
day when Northern men would propose to iatro- 
dace Slavery into Northern States, you would 
consider it, perhaps, a foolish predictiou ; and yet 
there aro men in Congress whose receat course 
can be explained upon no other hypothesis. Aud 
I do not hesitate now to predict that whea the 
South shall be allowed to acquire the political 
control of the Government in the manner I have 
shown they are now attempting to do, and shall 
be able to hold the offices of the country in their 
hands to offer as the bribe, there will be no want 
of men in the North to advocate and labor for this 
result ; and, judging them by their past conduct, 
I could name in the present Congress men who 
would take the lead in such a movement. Alrea- 
dy have they lent their aid to make a Slave State 
from Free Territory, and I insist that there is but 
small difiference between the two. The man who 
•would assist to make a Slave Constitution for Free 
Territory in northern latitudes, would not hesitate 
to do the same thing for a Free State. All that 
ia needed is a sufficient consideration, and if you 
will hand over the great and fertile region of the 
West to the South, that consideration will not be 
wanting. Let the laboring man and the patriot 
of the North be warned in time. 

I could go on and show you, if time served, 
abundance of other considerations for saving to 
the North these vast Western plains and future 
States. It is easy to prove how the glory and 
power of our country is to be promoted, by filling 
the remaining half of our continent with Northern 
labor, enterprise and progress, instead of decayed, 
and stationary, and blighted States, wasted and 
destroyed by Slave labor, and shunned by the free 
white workingmau ; easy to prove the difference, 
numbered by many long years, which would 
elapse in the planting of a continuous line of pop- 
ulation to unite the Atlantic States to the Pacific; 
easy to show how the dedication of this vast 
«ountry to Southern institutions, and the exclu 
Eioa of Free Labor and Northern enterprise 
would retard, if it did not prevent, the great pro- 
ject of a Railroad to the Pacific, intended to bring 
through our country the trade of the Indies, and 
enrich it by its droppings of wealth ia our North- 
ern States and cities. 

There is, however, one consideration, which, 
though compelled to notice briefly, I cannot omit. 
I hold that to the Northern States these vast Wes- 
tern Territories are absolutely essential. We are 
continually pouring off from the North an un- 
ceasing stream of surplus population, composed 
principally of the laboring men. This great hu- 
man tide is so large that if concentrated, it would 
produce a State every five or six years. It has 
already made the great and flourishing States of 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, and Wis- 
consin, which uow teem with tlieir millions of 
people, their splendid cities, their churches and 
schools, and railroads and commerce, and enter- 
prise of all kinds, and furnish large accessions to 
the stream of Western emigration by which they 
were made. It is the great resource of the poor 
man of the North, whereby with the moderate 
savings of his labor, almost useless to him on the 
valuable real estate of the old States, ho can lay 



the sure foundations of wealth and comfori 
and social position. It converts thousands of 
poor working men into useful and respectable 
owners of the soil, and betters the condition of 
those they leave behind by depleting the walks 
of labor and keeping down an excess of the sup- 
ply. It thus makes the laborer at home more ia 
demand, aud renders him more comfortable, more 
intelligent and more independent. 

Slave labor and Free labor, as all men admit 
North and South eannot exist together. Dedicate 
a State to Slave labor, and Northern emigration, 
guided by the sure instinct of self-preservation, 
will shun it as it would the valley of the Upas tree. 
Having shut the gates of Kansas and the other 
future States against Northern emigration by 
making them Slave States, where will you turn 
this immense empire-building human stream? 
Theory and experience both demonstrate that no 
temptation of natural advantages or low prices 
will induce it to enter a Slave State. The history 
of Missouri alone (to say nothing of the half- 
populated, stationary condition of all the Southern 
States,) abundantly proves this. To the emigrant 
choosing between Missouri aud Iowa, or Missouri 
and Illinois, the temptation of five acres for one 
will not take him into the former. Northern 
emigration, then finding no satisfactory outlet, is 
thrown back upon us with a recoil that will shock 
the frame of society. The great hope and refuge 
of our surplus labor is taken away— the supply 
exceeds the demand — all the ranks of labor be- 
come thickened, until wages depreciate and Ca- 
pital becomes the master, Labor almost the slave 
The whole laboring population, as in the experi- 
ence of Ireland and China, unemployed, unfed, and'- 
uneducated, becomes a mass of degradation, ig- 
norance, poverty and crime, to be supported not 
by the equivalent of honest labor, but through 
the courts, the almshouses, and the prisons. 

This is no fancy picture, but the true deduction 
of an inevitable result from the undeniable and 
immutable laws of political economy. The South 
have no surplus emigrating population. The old- 
est Slave States in the Union are not half filled, 
and the youngest — admitted eleven years ago — 
has not now a population to entitle it to a single 
Member of Congress. They may desire this Ter- 
ritory for political power, or to raise the price of 
negroes ; we need it for self-preservation. We 
cannot dispense with it. It was ours by the com- 
pact of 1820 ; ours again by the second compact 
of 1854, and a majority of men on the soil ; and 
we are craven, cowering slaves if we allow it now 
to be snatched from our doubly-rightful grasp, by 
violence and fraud. 

It can be saved only by a chauge in the policy 
of the Government — by the defeat of that pirty 
which has indorsed, and which, as a whole, is still 
indorsing and sustaining the Administration 
which has allowed and furthered the infamous 
scheme I have exposed — by teaching the South a 
lesson of justice and good faith — by sustaining 
and putting in power that party whose leading 
feature is opposition to these outrages., and whose 
avowed object is the admission of Kansas as a 
Free State. In a word, by the defeat of that 
Southern sectional party, formerly the Democratic 
party, and by the sucot ss of their only actual op- 



10 



ponentfl, the Republicans. But, meantime, it is 
equally indispensable to sustain in the Territory 
the men who, stung by their wrongs, are now fight- 
ing your battles upon its soil. They are. it is 
true, few in number, isolated from their frionil.s, 
with a numerous and powerful enemy in front, 
almost a famine around them, and vast empty 
plains, offering them naught but Btarvation, be- 
hind ; but they are noble spirits, and worthy of 
the cause. They ask of you supplies to strengthen 
their hands. Men of warm hearts and strong 
arms, brave and gallant spirits by the thousand, 
are ready to go to their aid if you will furnish 
the means. With much labor we have opened and 
provided a route which, though slow and labor- 
ious and expen-sive, is the best substitute for that 
which the Government has allowed our enemies 
to close. We have an organization, at the head 
of which is a National Committee of men selected 
for all the qualities necessary to the place. They 
have a perfect organization, with commissarj'- and 
transportatioa agents, and other well-matured ar- 



rangements nnnecessary now to explain. All the 
money contributed is sure to go direct to its ob- 
ject, in the most economical and effective manner. 
It is now for you to say, while you are at home in 
the enjoyment of social comfort, legal protectioQ 
and civil liberty, to decide whether this gallant 
pioneer band shall be submerged, whether the 
light of their enterprise, and your prospects, shall 
go out in their own blood, or whether the cause 
of the North, of freedom, of justice, and of truth, 
shall triumph. If they fail, you must succumb 
and feel the grievous consequences, tf they suc- 
ceed, you will reap the fruits. Aid in men and 
money must come quickly, or it need not come at 
all. It is a great enterprise, and he who would 
aid it must give in proportion to its greatness and 
its exigency — not from his mere superfluity, but 
with the spirit of sacrifice for a cause that de- 
mands it, aud with the recollection that your 
champions are giving, in many instances, all their 
worldly possessions, and the lives of themselvea 
and those most dear to them. 



THE POOR WHITES OF THE SOUTH. 

" Be the sin, the dangers, and the evils of Slaveiy all our own. We compel, we ask, none to share them with us." 

[Letters of Qov. Hammond of S. C, to Tlwynas Ciarhson.] 



The number of slaveholders in the Slave States 
of this Union, as ascertained by the census returns 
of 1850, was three hundred and forty-seven thou- 
sand five hundred and twenty-live. An average 
of five persons and seven-tenths to a family, as 
assumed by the Superintendent of the censu.s, 
would give 1,980,89-i as the number of persons 
interested, as slaveholders in their own right, or 
by family relation. The whole number of whites 
in the .slaveholding States being, 0,222,418, the 
elavcholding proportion is a fraction short of 32 
per cent'. 

The Superintendent of the census. Professor 
Do Bow, Bays of the number, 347, .52.5, returned 
as slaveholders : 

"The number Inclu'les slave hirers, but is excluaive of 
lliose who are Interested conjointly with others in slave pro- 
perty. The two will about b;Uiince each other, for the 
■whole South, and leave the slave-owners as stated. 

" Where the parly owns slaves in different Counties, or 
In dlHercnt States, he will be entered more than once. This 
will disturb the calculation very little, being only the case 
among the larger properties." 

The addition of those who are " slaveliirers " 
merely, to the catagory of slaveowners, must, I 
think, swell their number much more than it is 
dimini.-ihed by the exclusion of " those who arc 
interested conjointly with others in slave proper- 
ty." Such instances of conjoint interest will oc- 
cur most ficriuently in the family relation.s, alrea- 
dy taken into the account, when we niulliplicd 
the number of slaveholders returned by five and 
ecvcn-tcnths. A comparison of the returns from 
Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia, 
whcie Klavchiring is much practised, with Ala- 
bama, MissiK^ippi and Louisiana, where it is less 
practised, shows the following results : 



Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Colum- 
bia, with 566,583 slaves, return 72,584 slave- 
owners. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, 
with 897,531 slaves, return 73,081 slaveowners. 
Tlic relative excess of slaveowners returned in 
Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, 
must be attributed, in part, to the inclusion of a 
relatively larger number of " slaveliirers." Upon 
the whole, it may safely be concluded that at 
least seven-tenths of the whites in tlie Slave 
States, are not .slaveowners, either in their own 
right, or by family relation. The number of 
wliiic males in the Slave States, aged twenty-one 
years and upward, in 1850, was 1,490,892. 

Considering that the number of 847,526, re- 
turned as slaveowners, is subject to some deduc- 
tions, and considering that of the slaveowners 
many are females and minors, it is probable that 
not exceeding one-fifth of the white male adults 
of the Slave States own slaves. 

The non-slavcliolding whites of the South, 
being not less than seven-tenths of the whole 
number of whites would seem to be entitled to 
some inquiry into their actual condition; and 
especially, as they have no real political weight 
or con.«ideration in the country, and lilllt! oppor- 
tunity to speak for themselves. I have been for 
twenty years a reader of Southern papers, and a 
reader and hearer of Congressional debates ; but 
in all that time, I do not rocolhn't ever to have 
seen or heard these non-slavcholding whites re- 
ferred to by Southern gentlenicn, as constituting 
any part of what they call " l/ic Soul/i." When 
the rights of the South, or its wrongs, or its poli- 
cy, or its interest, or its institutions, are spoken 
of, reference is always intended to the righto, 
wrongs, policy, iutercsta, and institutions of the 



11 



three hundred and forty-seven thousand slave- 
holders. Nobody gets into Congress from the 
South but by their direction ; nobody speaks at 
Washington for any Southern interest except 
theirs. Yet there is, at the South, quite another 
interest than theirs ; embracing from two to three 
times as many white people ; and, as wo shall 
presently see, entitled to the deepest sympathy 
and commiseration, in view of the material, intel- 
lectual, and moral privations to which it has been 
subjected, the degradation to which it has already 
been reduced, and the still more fearful degrada- 
tion with which it is threatened by the inevitable 
■operation of existing causes and influences. 

From a paper on " Domestic Manufactures in 
the South and West," published by M. Tarver of 
Missouri, in 1847, I make the following extracts: 

" The free popubition of the South may be divided into 
two classes — the slaveholder and the non-slaveholder. I 
am not aware that the relative numbers of these two classes 
have ever been ascertained in any of the States ; but I am 
satisfied tliat the non-slaveholders far outnumber the slave- 
holders — perhaps by three to one. In the more Southern 
portion of this region, the non-slaveholders possess, gene- 
rally, but very small means, and the land which they pos- 
sess is almost universally poor, and so sterile that a scanty 
subsistence is all that can be derived from its cultivation ; 
and the more fertile soil, being in the possession of the 
slaveholdei", must ever remain out of the power of those 
irho have none. 

"This state of things is a great drawback, and bears 
heavily upon and depresses the moral energie^of the poorer 
classes. * * * The acquisition of a resp'.'ctab!e position in 
the scale of wealth appears so diflScult, that they declint* 
the hopeless pursuit, and many of them settle down into 
habits of idleness, and become the almost passive subjects 
of all its consequences. And I lament to say that 1 have 
obse. ved of late years that an evident deterioration is 
taking place in this part of the population, the younger 
portion of it being less educated, less industrious, and in 
every point of view less respectable than tlieir ancestors. 
* * * It is, in an eminent degree, the interest of the slave- 
holder that a way to wealth and respectability should be 
opened to this part of the population, and that encourage- 
ment should be given to enterprise and industry ; and 
what would be more likely to afford this encouragement 
than the introduction of manufactures ? * * * To the slave- 
holding class of tlie population of the Southwest, the intro- 
duction of manufactures is not less interesting than to the 
non-slaveholding class. The former possess almost all the 
wealth of the country. The preservation of this wealth is a 
-subject of the highest consideration to those who possess it." 

This picture is distressing and discouraging; 
distressing, in that it exhibits three fourths of the 
whites of the South substantially destitute of pro- 
perty, driven upon soils so sterile that only a 
Bcanty subsistence is obtainable from them, de- 
pressed in moral energies, finding the pathway to 
respectability so difficult, that they decline the 
hopeless pursuit, ceasing to struggle, and becom- 
ing the almost passive subjects of the consequen- 
ces of idleness ; discouraging, in that it exhibits 
this great bulk of the white population growing 
■worse instead of better, evidently deteriorating, 
and its younger portion less educated, less indus- 
trious, and in every point of view less respectable 
than their ancestors. 

In the January number of 1850, of De Botii's 
Review, is an article on " Mannfactares in South 
Carolina,^ by J. H. Taylor, of Charleston, (S. C 
from which I make the follo^ving extracts: 

" There is in some quarters a natural jealousy of the 
8lighte.-it innovation upon established habits: and because 
An effort has been made to collect the poor and unemployed 



white population into our new factories, fears have ariaea 
that some evil would grow out of the introduction of such 
establishments among us. 

" Let us, however, look at this matter with (jandor and 
calmness, and examine all its bearings before we determine 
that the introduction of a profitable industry will endanger 
our institutions. * * » The poor man has a vote as well as 
the rich man, and in our State the number of the former 
will largely overbalance the latter. So long as these peor 
but industrious people could see no mode of living except 
by a degrading operation of work with tlie negro upon tho 
plantation, they were content to endure life in its most dis- . 
couraging forms, satisfied they were above the slave, though 
faring often worse than he. But the progress of the world 
is ' onward,' and though in some sections it is slow, still it is 
' onward,' and the great mass of our poor white population 
begin to understand that they have rights, and that they, 
too, are entitled to some of the sympathy which falls upon 
the suffering. They are fast learning that there is an 
almost infinite world of industry opening before them by 
wliicii they can elevate themselves and their families from 
wretchedness and ignorance to competence and intelligence. 
It is this great upheaving of ou>- masses that toe Juive to 
fear, so far as our institutions are concerned. * * * 

" The employment of the white labor which is now to a 
great e.xtent contending with absolute want, will enablo this 
part of our population to surround themselves with comforts 
which poverty now places beyond their reach. The active 
industry of a father, the careful housewifery of the mother, 
and the daily cash earnings of foi'r or five children, will 
Very soon enable each family to own a servant; thus in- 
creasing the demand for this species of property to an Im- 
mense extent. ********* 

" The question has often been asked, Will Southern ope- 
ratives equal Northern in their ability to accomplish factory 
work ? Asa general answer, I should reply in the affirma- 
tive ; but at tlie same time it may with justice be said they 
cannot at present, even in our best factories, accomplish as 
much as is usual in Northern mills. The habitude of our 
people has been to anything but close application to manual 
labor, and it requires time to bring the whole habits of a 
person into a new train." 

The Italicizing in these extracts is Mr. Taylor's, 
and not mine. 

Mr. Taylor expresses himself in a very con- 
fused and inartificial way, but it is not difficult to 
understand what he means. He is addressing 
himself to the Slaveholding aristocracy, and he de- 
scribes these poor whites, very much as a French 
philosopher would describe the blouses of the 
Faubourg St. Antoine to polite ears in the Fau- 
bourg St. Germain. The collection into towns of 
the poor and unemployed white popuhition of 
South Carolina, had evidently given rise to some 
visions of social outbreak and anarchy, which Mr. 
Taylor feels called upon to dispel. These poor 
people, who were willing to be industrious if they 
had the opportunity to be so, but to whom no 
labor was offered except in degrading connection 
with plantation negroe.s, had been content to 
struggle on, enduring life in its most discouraging 
forms, contending with absolute want, and often 
faring worse than the negro, but yet solaced by 
the satisfaction that they were above the negro in 
some respects. But at length light was beginning 
to penetrate even into South Carolina, and these 
unhappy beings were catching a glimpse of the 
truth, that even they, in their depths of poverty 
and humiliation, had some rights and were en- 
titled to some of the sympathy which falls upon 
the suffering. They were fast learning that there 
existed, in happier communities, modes of indus- 
try, which, if opened to them, would elevate them 
and their families from wretchedness and igno- 
rance to competence and intelligence. This 
knowledge might occasion an upheaving of the 
masses, seriously threatening the social and do- 



12 



meetic institutions of South Carolina unless pro- 
perly directed. If, on the contrary, these poor 
whites could be furnished with reniuneratintj 
labor, they would place themselves in a position 
of comfort, and even become slave-holders them- 
selves, thus increasing the demand for that sort 
of property and enhancing its security. 

From an address upon the subject of manufac- 
tures in South Carolina, delivered in 1851, beibre 
the South Carolina Institute, by Wm. Gregg, Esq., 
I make the following extracts ; 

" In all other countries, and particularly manufacturing 
States, labor and capital are assuming an antaponistical 
position. Here it cannot be the case ; capital will be able 
to control labor, even in raanufaetures with whites, for 
blacks can always be resorted lo in case of need. * * ♦ 
From the best estimates that I have been able to make, I 
put down llic white people who ought to work and who do 
not, or who are so employed as to be wholly unproductive 
to the State, at one hundred and twenty-five thousand. * 

♦ • Ry this it appears that but one-fifth of the present 
poor whites of our ijtates wo ild be necessary to operate 
1,000,000 gpindle*. * * Tlie appropriation annually 
made by our Legislature for our School Fund, every one 
must be aware, so far as the coun;ry is concerned, has been 
little better than a waste of raonty. * « ♦ While we 
are aware that the Northern and "the Eastern States find 
no dlfBculiy in educating their poor, we are ready to des- 
pair of success in the matter, for even penal laws against 
the neglect of education would fail to bring many of our 
country people to send their children to school. * * * 
I have long been under the impression, and every day's ex- 
perience has strengthened my convictions, that the evils 
exist in the wholly neglected condition of this class of per- 
sons. Any man who is an observer of things could hardly 
pass through our country without being struck by the fact 
that all the capital, enterprise and intelligence is employed 
In directing slave labor; and that the consequence is, that 
a large portion of our poor white people are wholly 
neglected, and are Buffered to while away an exis- 
tence in a slate but one step in adviince of the Indian 
of the forest. It is an evil of vast ma^'nitude, and nothing 
but a change in public sentiment will effect its cure. These 
people must be brought into daily contact with the rich and 
intelligent — ihey must be stimulated to mental action, and 
taught 10 uppreciate education and the comforts of civilized 
life; and tlils, we believe, may be effected only by the in- 
troduction of manufactures. * * * My experience at Gran- 
ItevUle has satl.«fieil me, that unless our poor people can be 
brought together in villages, and some means of employ- 
ment alToided them, it will be an utterly hopeless elfort to 
undertake to educate them. * * * We have colleclcd at 
that place about 800 peo|)le, and as likely looking a fet of 
country girU as may be found — Industrious and orderly 
people, but deplorably ignorant, Ihree-fourihs of the adults 
not being able to read, or to write their naiiie". * * * With 
the aid of ministers of the Oo-pel on the spot to preach to 
them and lecture the :i on the subject, we have obtained but 
about Co children for our school, of about a hundred which 
are In the place. We are satisfied that n ithing bu' time 
and patiince will enable ut to bring them all out. * * • It 
la very clear to me, thai the only means of educating and 
Christianizing our poor whites, will be to bilng them into 
audi vdlages, where they will not only become intrlligent, 
but a thrif:y and useful cl.iBS in our community. • * * Not- 
withstanding our rule that no one can be permitted to 
occupy our houses who doi-s not Sun 1 all his children to 
■chool that are between the ages of C ami 12, it was with 
some dlllloulty, at (Irtl that we could make up even a s'luall 
school." 

It is noticeable that Mr. Gregg, like Mr. Taylor, 
begins by an alli-inpt to allay patrician jealousies 
excited l)y the idi.-a of collecting the poor white.'^ 
into mas.xes. Mr. Gregg points out that the cx- 
isteiicu of Slavery enables capital lo control white 
labor as well as black, by the power which it re- 
tains to Rubjititulc the latter, when the former 
becomes unruly. 

The whole white population of South Carolina, 
by the census of 18.'>0, being only 274,608, neatly 



one half, according to Mr. Gregg's estimate, are 
substantially idle and unproductive, and would 
seem to have sunk into a condition Ijut little re- 
moved from barbarism. All the capital, enter- 
prise and intelligence of the State being employed 
in directing slave labor, these poor whites, wholly 
neglected, whiliiig away an existence but one step 
in advance of the Iiuliaii of the forest, never taught 
to appreciate education and the comforts of civil- 
ized life, deplorably ignorant, and induced with 
great difliculty, and only by slow degrees, to send 
their children to schools, do truly constitute " an 
evil of vcu<t maffnitnde" and call loudly for some 
means of ^'' edttcatinc/ and christianh.iiig^ them. 

(tov. Hammond, in an address before the South 
Carolina Institute in 1850, describes these poor 
whites as follows : 

" They obtain a precarious 8ub.«istence by occ.isional jobs, 
by hunting, by fishing, by plundering fields or folds, and too 
often by what is in its effects far worse — trading with slaves, 
and seducing them to plunder for their benefit." 

Elsewhere Mr. Gregg speaks as follows : 

" It is only necessary to build a manufacturing village of 
shanties, in a healthy location, in any part of the Statp, to 
have crowds of these people aroand you seeking employ- 
ment at half the compensation given to o])eratlves at the 
North. It is, indeed, painful to be brought in contact with 
such ignoranc.f and degradation." 

Is it really true that South Carolina means to 
dissolve this Union, if she cannot be permitted to 
extend further, institutions under which one-fifth 
of her people are .savages, while another three- 
(ifths are slaves ? 

In a paper published in 1852 upon the '■'■indus- 
trial regeneration of tJte Sout/t,^^ advocating manu- 
factures, the Hon. J. H. Lumpkin of Georgia 
says : 

" Ills object that these manufacturing establishments will 
become the hot-beds of crime. ♦ * But I am by no means 
ready to concede that oar poor, degraded, half- fed, half- 
clothed and ignorant population— without Sabbath schools, 
or any other kind of instruction, mental or moral, or with- 
out any just ap|)reciatlon of character — will be Injured by 
giving them employment, which will bring them under the 
oversight of employers, who will inspire th-^m with self- 
respect by taking an interest In their welfare." 

Georgia, it seems, like South Carolina, and un- 
der the influence of the same great cause, has her 
poor whites, degraded, half-fed, half-clothed, with- 
out mental or moral instruction, and destitute of 
self-respect and of any just a])preciation of char- 
acter. Is it really true that (icorgia means to dis- 
solve this Union if she cannot be permitted to 
l)last this fair continent with such a population as 
this? 

A i)aper upon cotton and cotton manufactnrex at 
the South, by Mr. (!harles T. James (United States 
Senator) of liliodc Island, which I find in Do 
IJow's Industrial Resources of tlu South and West, 
contains statements similar, in substance, to those 
of Messrs. Taylor, Gregg, and Lumpkin. Mr. 
James's pursuits have made him acquainted with 
the condition of manufactures in all sections of the 
coiintry, and his essays are written in a spirit of 
candor, and even kindness, to the South, as their 
publication by De Bow suHicieutly proves. Mr.. 
James .says : 



13 



**Thig is a subject oa vrhich, though it demands attention, 
we should speak with delicacy. It is not to be disguised, 
nor c;in it be successfully controverted, that a degree and 
extent of poverty and destitution exist in the Southern 
States, among a certain class of people, almost unknown in 
the manufacturing districts of the North. The poor white 
man will endure the evils of pinching poverty, rather than 
engage in servile labor under the existing state of things, 
even were employment offered him, which is not general. 
The white female is not wanted at service, and, if she were, 
«he would, however humble in the scale of society, consider 
such service a degree of degradation to which she could 
not condescend ; and she has, therefore, no resource, but to 
suflfer the pangs of want and wretchedness. Boys and girls, 
by thousands, destitute both of employment and the means 
of education, grow up to ignorance and poverty, and, too 
many of them, to vice and crime. . . The writer knows, 
from personal acquaintance and observation, that poor 
Southern persons, male and female, are glad to avail them- 
selves of individual efforts to procure a comfortable liveli- 
hood in any employment deemed respectable for white per- 
sons. They make applications to cotton mills where such 
persons are wanted, in numbers much beyond the demand 
for labor ; and, when admitted there, they soon assume the 
Industrious habits and decency in dress and manners of 
the operatives in Northern factories. A demand for labor 
in such establishments is all that is necessary to raise this 
<;Ia^s from want and beggary, and (too frequently) moral 
degradation, to a state of comfort, comparative independ- 
ence, and moral and social respectability. Beside this, 
thousands of such would naturally come together as resi- 
dents in manufacturing villages, where, with very little trou- 
ble and expense, they might receive a common school edu- 
■oation, instead of growing up in profound ignorance." 

These remarks of Mr. James are quoted and in- 
dorsed in an article upon the Establishment of 
Manufacturer of JVeio Orhans, which I find in 
De Bow's Review for January, 1850 . The writer, 
whose name is not given, but who appears to be 
a citizen of New Orleans, says : 

" At present, the sources of employment open to female 
(save in menial offices), are very limited ; and an inability 
to procure suitable occupation is an evil much to be de- 
plored, as tending in its consequences to produce demorali- 
Ealion. 

" The superior grades of female labor may be considered 
such as imply a necessity for education on the part of the 
employee, wliile the menial class is generally regarded as 
of the lowest ; and in a Slave State, this standard is ' in the 
lowest depths, a lower deep,' from the fact, that by associa- 
tion, it is a reduction of the white servant to the level of 
their colored fellow-menials." 

The complaint of low wages and want of em- 
ployment comes from every part of the South. 

Mr. Steadman, of Tennessee, in a paper upon 
the Extension of cotton and wool factories at the 
South, says: 

" In Lowell, labor is paid the fair compensation of SO 
■cents a day for men, and |2 a week for women, beside 
board, while in Tennessee the average compensation for la- 
bor does not exceed 50 cents per day for men, and $1 25 per 
week for women. Such is the wisdom of a wise division of 
labor." 

In a speech made in Congress five or six years 
since, Mr. T. L. Cliugman, of North Carolina, 
said : 

"Our manufacturing establishments can obtain the raw 
material (cotton) at nearly two cents on the pound cheaper 
than the New-England establishments. Labor is likewise 
one hundred per cent cheaper. In the uppsr parts of the 
State, the labor of either a free man or a jlave, including 
board, clothing, etc., can be obtained for from $110 to ?120 
j>er annum. It will cost at least twice that sum in New- 
England. The difference in the cost of female labor, whe- 
ther free or slave, Is evr-n greater. As we have now a po- 
pulation of nearly one million, we might advance to a 
greater extent in manufacturing, before we materially in- 
creased the wages of labor." 



A Richmond (Va.) newspaper. The Dispatch, 

says : 

" We will only suppose that the ready-made shoes im- 
ported into the city from the North and sold here were ma- 
nufactured in Richmond. AVhat a great addition it would 
be to the means of employment I How many boys and fe- 
males would find means of earning their bread who are now 
suffering for a regular supply of the necessaries of life !" 

The following statistics from the Census of 1850 
show the number of whites (excluding foreign- 
born) in certain States, and the number of white 
persons, excluding foreign-born, in such States, 
over twenty years of age, unable to read and 
write : 

Unable to rsid 

States. WhitM. mid vntt, 

New-England States 2,899,651 6,209 

New- York 2,393,101 23,240 

Alabama 419,016 83,613 

Arkansas 160,721 16,792 

Kentucky 780,012 64,349 

Missouri 515,434 34,420 

Virginia 871,&47 75,86S 

North Carolina 550,463 78,226 

South Carolina ... 266,055 15,680 

Georgia 515,120 40,794 

Tennessee 751,198 77,017 

The evils which afflict the Slave States are va- 
rious and complicated ; but they all originate 
with, or are aggravated by, that fatal institution 
which Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and 
all the great men of the South of the Revolu. 
tionary epoch deplored, but which the madness 
of modern times hugs as a blessing. 

The wages of labor are always low in coun- 
tries exclusively agricultural. Industry begins to 
be fairly rewarded, when it is united with skill, 
when employments are properly divided, and 
when the general average of education and intel- 
ligence is raised by the facilities afforded by den- 
sity of population. The grain-growing regions 
of Eastern Europe are tilled by serfs ; it is only 
in Western Europe that we find industry enjoying 
iiny tolerable measure of competence, intelli- 
gence, and respectability. Agricultural countries 
are comparatively poor, and manufacturing and 
commercial countries are comparatively rich ; be- 
cause rude labor, even upon rich soils, is less pro- 
ductive than skilled labor, aided by machinery 
and accumulated capital. That the South is al- 
most exclusively agricultural, results, especially 
in the more northerly Slave States, (which have 
admirable natural facilities for mining and manu- 
facturing,) from the institution of Slavery, under 
which there cannot be in the organization of so- 
ciety that middle clas.«, which, in Free States, is 
the nursery of intelligent and enterprising in- 
dustry. 

The whites at the South not connected with the 
ownership or management of slaves, constituting 
not far from three fourths of the whole number 
of whites, confined at best to the low wages of agri- 
cultural labor, and partially cut off even from this 
by the degradation of a companionship with black 
slaves, retire to the outskirts of civilization, where 
they lead a semi-savage life, sinking deeper and 
more hopelessly into barbarism with each suc- 
ceeding generation. The slaveowner takes at first 
all the best land, and finally all the best 
land susceptible of regular cultivation ; and 



Ik 



the poor whites, thrown back npon the hills 
and upon the sterile poils — mere Fquattcrs, 
without cnorgy enough to acquire title even 
to the cheap lands they occupy, without roads, 
without schools, and at length without even a dc- 
gire for education, become the miseral)ie beings de- 
scribed to us by the writers whom I have quoted. 
In Virginia and all the old Slave Slates, immense 
tracts belonging to private owners, or abandoned 
for taxes, and in the Southwest, immense tracts 
belonging to the Government of the United States, 
are occupied in this way. Southern agriculture. 
rude and wastL'ful to the last degree, is not fitted 
to grapple with difficulties. It seizes upon rich 
soils aud flourishes only while it io e.xhausting 
them. It knows how to rai.=e cotton and corn, 
but has no flexibility, no power of adaptation to 
circumstances, no inventiveness. The poor white, 
if he cannot find bottoms whereon to raise grain, 
becomes a hunter upon the hills which might en- 
rich him with flocks and herds. 

In the first settlement of the new and rich soils 
of the Southwest, these evils were less apparent ; 
but the downward progress is rapid and certain. 
First the farmer without slaves, and then the 
small planter, succumbs to the conquering deso- 
lation. How feelingly it is depicted in the follow- 
ing extract from an Address delivered a few 
weeks since by the lion. G. C. Clay, jr., of Ala- 
l>ama : 

"I can show you, with sorrow, in the older portions of 
Alabama, and in my native county of Madison, the sad 
mumorials of tlie artless and txhaustlng culture of cotton. 
Our small planterH, after taking the cream off their lands, 
unable to restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are 
going further Went and Bouth, in search of other virgin 
lands, which they may and will despoil and impoverish in 
like manner. Our wealthier planters, with greater means 
and no more skill, are buying out their poorer neighbors, 
extending their plantations, and adding totheirslave force. 
The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller profits and 
to glvfi IhelrbWsted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the 
many who are merely iiidepcrndcnt. Of the $21,000 an- 
nually realized from the sales of the cotton crop of Ala- 
bama, niarly all, not expended in supporting thi producers, 
Is reinvested In land and negroes. Thus the white popu- 
lation has decreased and the slave incn^ased almost pari 
pas*u in several counties of our State. In 1S25 Madi- 
son County cast .ibout 8,000 votes ; now she cannot cast 
exceeding 2,800. In traversing that county, one will dis- 
co/er numerous farm-houses, once the abode of Industri- 
ous and Intelligent freemen, anw occupied by slaves, or 
tenantlcss, deserted and dilapidated : he will observe ficld><, 
once fertile, now un fenced, abandoned and cover>d with 
those evil harbin.<cri>, fox-tail and broomsedge ; he will see 
the most growing on the mouldering walls of once thrift 
Tillage^, and will Hod one 'only master grasps the whole do- 
main ' that once furnished happy homes for a dozen white 
families. Indeed, a country In its Inlai.cy, where flfly years 
ago scarce a fiirertt tree had bi-en felled by the ax of the 
pioneer. Is already exhibiting the piiihful siyns of senility 
aud deca/, apparent in Virginia and Carolina. " 

It is undoubtedly true that the condition of the 
South would be va.stly ameliorated if its jjur- 
Kuits were more diversified, if its great facilities 
for mining and manufacturing were improved, 
and if its wasteful Hystems of agriculture were 
changed. The profits of capital would be raised, 
and the productiveness of labor would be en- 
hanced. To a certain extent, perhaps, the free 
laborer migiit be benefited by the greater em- 
ployment and higher wages which would result ; 
but the same fatal, overthadowing evil which has 
driven him from the field, would drive him from 



the workshop and the factory. Hcsret in latere 
lethalis arundo. Even Mr. Gregg, from whom I 
have quoted above, says that " All overseers, 
who have experience in the matter, give the de- 
cided preference to blacks as operatives." Mr. 
Montgomery, in his treati.se on the " Cotton Manu- 
factures of the United States, compared with 
Great Britain," states that " there are several 
cotton factories in Tennessee operated entirely by 
slave labor, there not being a white man in the 
mill but the superintendent." The employment 
of slaves is common everywhere at the South, in 
factories and mining. The author of the " Future 
of the South." (De Bow's Review, vol. 10, page 
146,) says that " the blacks are equally service- 
able in factories as in fields." 
A writer in The Mississippian says : 

" Will not our slaves make tanners? And can they not 
when supplied with m.iterials, iii.ike peg and other shoes? 
Cannot our slaves make plow.i and harrows, &c. ? The 
New England St^ites cannot make and send us brick and 
framed houses, .tnd therefore w.' have learned that our 
slaves can make and lay bricks and perform the work of 
house-joiners and carpenters. — In fact, we know that in me- 
chanical pursuits and manufacturing cotton and woollen 
goods they are fine laborers." 

The statesmanlike Gov. llammond, looking at 
the matter from a statesman's point of view, may 
recommend as he does, tlie employment of poor 
whites in factories, as being upon the whole, al- 
though immediately less clieap, more for the gen- 
eral good of the community. Men are not 
governed in matters of business by any such 
consideration as this. If slave labor is adapted 
to factories, as it would seem to be, and is cheaper 
than white labor, as it would also seem to be ; it 
will be employed, be the consequence to the com- 
munity ever so disastrous. And where it is em- 
ployed at all, it will be cmploved exclusively, as 
in the Tcnncs<<ce factories, from the insuperable 
repugnance of whites to labor side by side, and on 
an e(|uality with black slaves. 

The difficulty in the case is invincible. The pro- 
perty-holders of the Soutii own a vigorous and 
serviceable body of black laborers, who can be 
fed for $20 per annum and clothed for $10 per 
annum ; who can be koiit industrious and pre- 
served from debilitating vices by coercion, by no 
means ina[)t in the simpler arts, naturally docile, 
and, under any tolerable treatment, "fat anil 
sleek;" such is the terrible, the overwhelming, 
the irresistible competition, to which the non-pro- 
perty-holding three quarters of the whites at th« 
South are subjected, when they come into the 
market with their labor. 

It is not wonderful that tliey seek escape from 
the nightmare which broods over them, and fly by 
thousands to the refuge of the Free States. The 
census of 1850 found CO'.), 871 persons living in the 
Free States who were born in the Slave States, 
while only '2ni',,(;H8 persons born in the Free 
States were living in the Slave States. The num- 
lier of emigrants from Free to Slave States, and 
from Slave to Free States, living in 18.50, have 
been carefully collected from Table CXX. found 
on the lltUh page of the Compendium of the 
Census of 1850. That table gives the nativity of 
the " white and free colored population " without 



15 



distinguishing the two classes ; but the "/ree col- 
ored population " is too small, and its movement 
too slight to affect the substantial accuracy of the 
calculation. On the 115th page of this Compen- 
dium is found the following statement : 

"There are now, 726,450 persons living in Slave-holding 
States, who are natives of non-Slave-holding States, and 
282,112 pertons living in non-Slave-holding States who are 
natives of Slave-holding States." 

This is a manifest error, and I supposed at first 
that there was a transposition of the numbers, but 
upon calculation, find the true numbers to be as 
given in the text. It is to be observed that the 
white population of the Free States is double that 
of the Slave States, so that the per centage of 
Southern whites moving North is six times greater 
than that of Northern whites moving South. 

It is to be observed also, in reference to what 
little emigration there is from the Free to the 
Slave Si-ates, that it results from the fact that the 
domestic institutions of the latter do not encourage 
the development of mereantile enterprise, me- 
chanical skill, and general business capacity, and 
that the deficiency in those respects is necessarily 
supplied from abroad. Of ;«e?-e labor, there is ab- 
solutely no movement from the Free to the Slave 
States. 

Of the persons who have emigrated from the 
border slave States, and who were living in other 
States in 1850, the following table will show the 
numbers living in free and slave states respec- 
tively : 

Living in Fre« Living in Slave 

Zmigrjt«d from St^itos. StnUi. 

Delaware 25,182 6,788 

Maryland 86,(«)4 41 ,627 

Virginia 182,424 204,961 

Kentucky 148,68U 107,844 

Missouri 20,244 14,682 

Total 462,534 875,853 

If from 838,387, the entire number of emigrants 
from these States, we deduct one Iburth part, as- 
sumed to be holders of slaves, and therefore com- 
pelled to select their residence in slave States, we 
have left 628,790 as the number of emigrants not 
holders of slaves, and therefore at liberty to select 
their residence in free or slave States, as they 
might think best. Of this number 462,534, or a 
fraction short of seventy-four per cent, selected 
the free States. 

Of the persons who have emigrated from the 
border free States, and who were living in other 
States in 1850, the following table will show the 
numbers living in Free and Slave States, respect- 
ively : 

Living in Fr«« Living in Slavs 

Einigrnted from Slates. StstiB. 

New- Jersey 114,511 18,418 

Pennsylvania 866,817 53,860 

Ohio 259,938 23,770 

Indiana 66,141 24,780 

Illinois 22,707 20,658 

Iowa 8,857 1,758 

Total 832,971 152,644 

Of the emigration from the border States, it is 
to be observed that its direction, whether to Free 
or to Slave States, is less controlled by the consi- 



deration of climate than is the direction of the 
emigration from the extreme North or the ex- 
treme South. 

The following table shows the number of per- 
sons living in 1850 in Illinois, Indiana, and Mis- 
souri, who emigrated from the Slave States, 
excluding the border States, and excluding Ar- 
kansas, which is adjacent to Missouri : 

Einig>(\t»d to Emigrated te 

Kmlgrnted from Illinois and Indiaoe. Mietfouri, 

North Carolina 47.026 17,009 

South Carolina 8,231 3,919 

Georgia 2,103 1,264 

Tennessee 45,087 44,970 

Alabama 1,730 2,067 

Mississippi 777 688 

Louisiana 701 746' 

Texas 107 24» 

Florida 44 6T 

Total 105,755 69,91» 

Here is an emigration involving considerable 
journeys, and not controlled by the consideratioa 
of immediate proximity. It is an emigration to 
States very similar in local position and physical 
characteri.«tics. Such differences as do exist, how- 
ever, in climate and productions, would incline 
the Southern emigrant to Missouri. Yet we find 
three fifths of these emigrants placing themselves 
voluntarily under the operation of the Ordinance 
of 1787. It is a fair inference and it is true, that 
the real wishes as well as real interests of a ma- 
jority of the whites of the South are in oppositioa 
to the extension of Slavery ; but it is only the 
minority of slaveholders, which is represented la 
Congress, or which has otherwise any political 
weight in the country. 

It is unquestionable that the immigration from 
the South has brought into the Free States more 
ignorance, poverty and thriftlessness than an 
equal amount of the immigration from Europe. 
Where it forms a marked feature of the popula- 
tion, as in Southern Illinois, a long time must 
elapse before it is brought up to the general 
standard of intelligence and enterprise in the 
Free States. This remark is made in no spirit of 
unkindness. The whites of the South are nearly 
all of the Revolutionary stock. They are a fine, 
manly race. Their valor, attested upon a hun- 
dred battle-fields, shone untarnished and still re- 
splendent in the last conflict of the Republic. No 
banner floated more defiantly amid the smoke and 
fire of the Valley of Mexico, than that up-borne 
Ijy the inextinguishable gallantry of the sons of 
South Carolina. I feel for that unhappy people 
all the tics of kith and kin. God forbid that any 
avenue should be closed, by v\h'ch ihuy Uiay 
escape out of the horrible pit of thoir bondage. 
If the Constitution permits the South to recapture 
their fugitive blacks, happily it does not permit 
them to recapture their fugitive whites. 

It is said that no equal number of negroes were 
so well off, upon the Nihole, as the slaves of the 
South, and that in contrast with their native bar- 
barism, their present lot, hai'd as it is, is one of im- 
provement and compaiative advancement. Evea 
if this be true ; even if thri'e millions and a half 
of people of Africisn blood have becti raised m 
the scale of civilizntio;i ; llie price paid for it is 
too costly. An equal number of people qf the 



16 



LiBRftRV OF CONGRESS 



Circassian stock have been deprived of all that 
constitutes civilization, and thrust down into bar- 
barism, thus reversing the order of Providence, 
and sacrificing the superior to the inferior race. 

It is said that an extension of the area of Slave- 
ry would add to the personal comfort of the slaves, 
at least for a considerable period of time. Even 
if this be so, our first and highest duty is to our 
own race, and it will be a most flagrant and in- 
excusable folly to permit such a sacrifice of it as 
we now witness in the Southern States, to be en- 
acted over again upon the vast areas of the West. 
Where the two races actually coexist, the relation 
which may best subsist between them may afford 
ftiir matter for dispute ; but it is against the clear 
and manifest dictates of common sense, volun- 
tarily, willingly and with our eyes open, to sub- 
ject the white man to a companionship which, 
under any relation, is an incumbrance and a curse. 

It is for the intelligent self-interest, the Christian 
philanthropy of the people of this great country, 




with a lllilillllllllllllilllllilH blading 

with SI illlli"^^^ but the 

judicit "T p,ii 898 301 4 W ermiie 

wbethe *' "" ..every snail inflict 

upon regions now fair and virgin from the hands 
of the Creator, its train of woes, which no man 
can number, which no eloquence can exaggerate, 
and of which no invective can heighten the hide- 
ous reality. It is for the people of tfiis great 
country to determine whether the further spread 
of a system, of which the worst fruits are not seen 
in wasted resources and in impoverished fields, 
but in a neglected and outcast people, shall be 
left to the accidents of latitude, of proximity, of 
border violence, or of the doubtful assent of em- 
bryo communities ,• or whether, on the other hand, 
it shall be stayed by an interdiction, as universal 
as the superiority of Good to Evil, as perpetual 
as the rightful authority of reason in the aflFairs 
of men, and as resistless as the embodied will of 
the nation. 



